This is my yappy place. Sometimes I share my workshop experiences in jewelry-making; sometimes I talk about other things that interest me. I have created tabs along the top of my blog (next to the word home, below this msg) so you can select certain categories if you like.

Not everyone can see the changes, but by the end of the month they say the new format will be rolled out to everyone.

STRESS DREAMS

Do you have recurring dream themes? I do… and they’ve changed throughout my life.

Supposedly the one where I’m back in school (college,
usually… which is funny since I didn’t go to college) and I can’t find my
class. Ugh! It’s so stressful. I know I’m going to be late and/or I haven’t
done my homework. Blah!

To me, stress is stress.
Yeah, I realize “dreams aren’t real”, but does that matter if the stress
is still real?

Apparently this is the same theme as being late to catch a
flight. Guess what… another recurring
theme of mine.

Here’s the surprising (not!) part… perfectionists tend to have
dreams of “unpreparedness” (both the above mentioned examples). One article stated that one explanation for
these dreams is “… you may be tying your self-worth too tightly to how you
perform at work.” Ha ha ha! Yeah, that could NEVER apply to artists. ;-)

When I was working in the corporate world, I used to have
recurring dreams where I was on out of control elevators. So yeah… me not being in control of my
direction. Didn’t need a book to tell me what that meant.

But on day two, sit down and sketch. It doesn’t have to be something you’re going
to end up making… just sketch. Doodle,
zentangle, anything. Write words if they
come to your mind, too. None of this has
to be jewelry design related. You’re
just practicing the relationship between your hand, your pencil, and your
paper. Your brain doesn’t have to be overly
involved. Today should be about fun, not
work.

On day three, relax. But
didn’t we just do that? Grab some of
your favorite craft or technique books and read. Just look at the photos and see how you feel
about them. Keep a sketch book by your
side and when trust me, the ideas will come.
You will see things or read things that will inspire you. Whether it’s an actual design you can sketch
out or just a note that starts out with “what if”.

On day four, realize that being creative doesn’t always mean
you have to be wildly innovative or ground-breaking. That kind of thinking can stop a designer
cold in their tracks. Frozen with fear. Stop.
Take a step back and do some rote technique all day long. Set up your soldering station and fuse some
silver rings… over and over… make necklace after necklace. By the end of the day, your fusing or
soldering skills should be wildly better than they were in the morning. Remember
“wax on, wax off”? That’s what we’re
doing. You can also do wire-wraps or
torch some beads or do some chain maille or simple enameling… anything that
needs a bit if improvement in your skill-set, but nothing that’s so complicated
that it will be a big stress for you.

On all of these days, set a timer to limit your time on the
computer. Social media can be fantastic
for our jewelry business, but in the wrong hands (or for the wrong reasons) it
can also be a huge time vacuum, sucking up hours and hours of potentially
creative design time.

On day five, shake up your routine. Take the day off and go exploring. Drive on a road you’ve never driven on
before. Go to a park and hike where you’ve
never been before. A museum, a zoo, a
bike trail… any place you’ve never been before.
If you’re really brave, talk to strangers too. Just be in the moment and notice what’s
around you. You want to fill your senses
with new experience. Let your brain know
it’s not in a rut.

Also, I think one of the most important things you can do is
keep a notebook with you at all times.
Write down all those ideas that you’re SURE you’ll remember. ‘Cause you know what? We don’t.
We don’t remember lines we saw that made us think of a necklace design
or the color combination on that tv ad that made us think of a bead idea. Write down everything. And then when you think you have no creative
ideas, go to your notebook and remind yourself about all these wonderful things
you thought of and can now do.

On day six, search the internet and download a
project/tutorial that looks interesting.
Make sure you have the materials on-hand and then go at it. Don’t download one that you won’t be able to
do that same day. Sometimes following
someone else’s instructions takes a load of pressure off of us and gives our
brains the time to relax and begin thinking again of ideas for us.

On day seven, commit to blogging on a regular basis. Pick a project and just start babbling about
it (with photos!). Other jewelry makers
love to read about what we’re all up to.
We want to see how it’s done and what you tried and what worked for you and
what didn’t work for you. One of my most
popular blog posts is about the day that I tried to learn how to fuse fine
silver. There are tons of videos and
tutorials online from people who already knew what they were doing, but a lot
of people really enjoy seeing it through the eyes of the explorer. And sometimes the explorer shares something
that a master might not think to mention.

So that’s one week where you don’t have to agonize over your
creative block. And hopefully, something
in that week will spark your ignition.

Will this jumpstart week work for everyone? I should think not since we’re all wired
differently. But you never know until
you try.

Saturday, April 5, 2014

One of my last blog posts was encouraging and all about
feeling confident and whatnot. But here’s
the flip side.

Many years ago I heard a story, one of those motivational
things. But this one resonated with me
for some reason and I’ve called it into play on more than one occasion. I am now going to do my usual job of butchering
my paraphrased version of it because I have no idea where the story originated
and I only have my memory to go off of.

So there was this student of the violin and he played at a
recital one day. Afterward, he met a violin
maestro (is that what they’re called?).
The young violinist asked the master for his opinion of the performance.

“Do I have what it takes to be a professional violinist
someday?” he asked the master.

The master looked at him and said, “I’m sorry, son, you don’t.”

The young violinist left and the master’s friend came up to
him and said, “That young boy was brilliant.
He has amazing talent. Why did
you tell him he doesn’t have what it takes?”

“Because”, answer the master, “If he has what it takes to be
great, he will not care about my opinion.
He will continue to do what he loves and become a master at it. If he lets my opinion of his talent change
the course of his life, he is not passionate enough to become a master in the
first place.”

While I don’t agree with everything this story represents, I
do get the point of it and ponder on it occasionally.

There’s something to be said for the person who can put his
head down and forge ahead without needing the encouragement of others.

SRAJD Jewelry Challenges

If you want to see some cool jewelry designs check out the
weekly jewelry design challenges of the SRAJD members. On the SRAJD blog,
every Friday, we’re posting the entries for the weekly design challenges.

And here are a few random photos from the first month with the theme of "geometric" jewelry design...

April’s theme is the elements.

Etsy Metal Charm Swap Bracelet

Last year I took part in EtsyMetal's charm
swap. 19 members of EtsyMetal all make 21 identical charms and every member
gets one charm from every other member, then the 2 leftover go into the
EtsyMetal shop (one to be sold along, the other to be added to the Charm Swap
bracelet). Awhile ago I showed you the charm I made for the swap, but the bracelet just got listed recently and I'd love to share it with you.

And just this week I’m mailing off my group of charms again
for swap #13. Will show you a pic of my
charm after I have it photographed.

This is NOT What I Had Planned

I was trying to finally work on making signatures for my work. So my idea was to etch the logo into copper then I could use that as a mold template for the metal clay.

So I make the thing and didn't realize until I was all finish that it's great to remember to "flip" your image when you're etching onto copper... if you're end product is the copper. Ha ha ha! Yep, I remembered to flip my image. What I hadn't taken into consideration, however, was that by pressing my metal clay into the copper, I was then reversing the direction again. D'oh!

So I turned lemons into lemonade by giving the logo template a patina, then cutting out the tiny rectangles and punching a hole in the corner. Now this wasted project can be used as hang tags.

Back to the drawing board with making my metal clay template though.

My Recent Jewelry

Here’s a piece I made at Hadar’s workshop. It’s reverse construction. I like the idea and want to explore the
technique more in the future.